© 2024
NPR for Northern Colorado
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Throughout the history of the American West, water issues have shown their ability to both unite and divide communities. As an imbalance between water supplies and demands grows in the region, KUNC is committed to covering the stories that emerge.

The Colorado River starts as snow, and the way we understand it is changing

Stephen Jaouen measures snow outside of Basalt, Colorado. High-mountain snowmelt is the largest source of water for the Colorado River, and climate change is gradually reducing the amount that falls. This year, a shifted baseline for what counts as “average” paints a somewhat deceptive picture of how much snow is stored up in the mountains.
Alex Hager
/
KUNC
Stephen Jaouen measures snow outside of Basalt, Colorado. High-mountain snowmelt is the largest source of water for the Colorado River, and climate change is gradually reducing the amount that falls. This year, a shifted baseline for what counts as “average” paints a somewhat deceptive picture of how much snow is stored up in the mountains.

High in the Rocky Mountains, under thin air and bluebird skies, the Colorado River basin is slowly filling its savings account. Craggy peaks become smooth walls of white and piles of snow climb conifer trunks, covering even the deepest, darkest corners of the woods with a glimmering blanket.

The snow that accumulates in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming will eventually become water in the Colorado River. Some of it will flow as far south as Mexico, running through kitchen faucets in cities and suburbs along the way, or watering crops that keep America fed through the winter.

Year by year, those piles are getting slightly smaller and melting earlier — slowly exhibiting the sting of a warming climate. The way we measure the snow is changing too, as a shifting baseline for what counts as “average” paints a somewhat deceptive picture of how much snow is stored up in the mountains.

It’s the type of thing that plays out subtly over the course of a human lifetime. On ski mountains across the region, it might be hard to notice anything beyond the normal ebb and flow of good years and bad years.

Tony Vagneur, a born-and-raised Aspen local, is looking out across the slopes of the town’s main ski mountain, basking in the warm afternoon sun and the glory of a classic Colorado ski day.

“Blue sky, bluebird day,” he said. “The kind everybody talks about. Temperatures probably in the low teens. The snow is hard and fast. I mean, it's perfect.”

Tony Vagneur, a born-and-raised Aspen local, says changes in snow are hard to notice on the ski slopes. But he's noticed his hay fields are drier in March than they used to be.
Alex Hager
/
KUNC
Tony Vagneur, a born-and-raised Aspen local, says changes in snow are hard to notice on the ski slopes. But he's noticed his hay fields are drier in March than they used to be.

This mountain and the town at its base depend on snow to keep the resort running. Vagneur has been skiing it for more than 70 years, and hasn’t noticed much change as far as the snow is concerned. But down in the valley, where he lives on a ranch, signs of changing snowpack are manifesting, starting with a dry year in the mid-70s that left his fields snowless by March.

“I hate to say, but many Marches after that, the hay fields have been bare,” he said. “So anecdotally, you could say it is probably a little less snow. Or maybe it's warmer. I don't know, not being a scientist. But it's noticeable.”

It’s noticeable to the scientists too, who have data to back up observations that Colorado’s snowpack is changing.

“If you look at long-term climate trends, you see a general warming in climate,” said Heather Lewin, science and policy director at Roaring Fork Conservancy. “Which doesn't necessarily change the amount of precipitation in headwaters areas, but changes how it falls.”

The conservancy does river research and education just downstream of Aspen, where snowmelt rushes through the valley on its way to the Colorado River. The Roaring Fork watershed makes up 0.5% of the landmass in the Colorado River basin, but provides about 10% of its water.

“We're seeing more precipitation as rain rather than as snow,” Lewin said. “So that means instead of having a savings account, we have a spending account that hits the river and moves quickly, versus a savings account that kind of gives us a long-term security.”

Snowy river
Alex Hager
/
KUNC
Water rushes through the Fryingpan River, just downstream of a snow survey site. It's part of the Roaring Fork watershed, which makes up 0.5% of the landmass in the Colorado River basin, but provides about 10% of its water.

As snow behavior changes, so does the way we understand snow measurement. In spring 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shifted how it calculates averages for all of its data.

In a way, it’s routine. Every 10 years, NOAA moves the three-decade window that it uses for averages. But the rapidly accelerating effects of climate change mean the current window sticks out from previous 30-year periods. The current window runs from 1991 to 2020, which includes the hottest-ever period in America’s recorded weather history.

Because of that, snowpack data tells a slightly deceptive story. It’s most frequently shared as a percent of average when it appears in newspapers and reports for skiers and river users. For example, if snowpack is at 120%, the number would appear far lower if current totals were compared to normals going back further than 30 years.

A map shows trends in April snowpack in the Western U.S. from 1955-2020. Blue circles represent increased snowpack, red circles represent a decrease.
USDA
/
Natural Resources Conservation Service
A map shows trends in April snowpack in the Western U.S. from 1955-2020. Blue circles represent increased snowpack, red circles represent a decrease.

“The context right now is that 120% of average might give us an inflated sense of confidence as to how much water we're going to see this summer and how much snow we're really looking at right now,” Lewin said.

Other scientists are noting some change too, including those who actually gather the snow measurements.

“When I first started 15 years ago, we'd actually measure some snow in the April-May survey,” said Stephen Jaouen, a conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “And a lot of times now, we just walk in and there's no snow.”

Jaouen conducts snow surveys deep in the Roaring Fork watershed, where getting good data requires a bit of trekking. After a drive downstream from Aspen, the winding mountain road extends past the fringes of cell signal, past a sprawling reservoir and up through dense thickets of Aspen trees.

At a trailhead on the side of the road, Jaouen and a technician click into backcountry skis and begin the journey downhill – a stumbly start-and-stop bushwhack through low brush and scattered tree trunks.

Then, with the help of traction skins on the bottoms of their skis, the pair hikes even further into the woods, following the route from memory until they reach the snow survey site. Here, Jaouen assembles a long aluminum tube and pulls out an analog scale. At nine separate points, he plunges the tube into the snow underfoot, filling it with a core of the white stuff. Using a ruler on the tube and the handheld scale, Jaouen and the technician produce measurements and jot down findings in a little notebook.

Snow surveys in Colorado have looked largely the same for decades. On the left, Dayton Knutsen and Stephen Jaouen carry out a snow survey in 2022. On the right, Jack Washichek and George Peak do the exact same on a snow survey in 1955. This has given the Natural Resources Conservation Service a reliable dataset going back nearly a century.
Alex Hager, KUNC
/
U.S. Department of Agriculture
Snow surveys in Colorado have looked largely the same for decades. On the left, Dayton Knutson and Stephen Jaouen carry out a snow survey in 2022. On the right, Jack Washichek and George Peak do the exact same on a snow survey in 1955. This has given the Natural Resources Conservation Service a reliable dataset going back nearly a century.

The process may sound a bit old-school, and that’s because it is. This exact site has been used for snow measurement — conducted in the exact same way — for almost a century. The only thing that’s changed, Jaouen said, is that heavy steel tubes were swapped for aluminum for easier carrying.

“You just know that the data has been collected the same way for so long that we can see rises and falls in snow water equivalent,” he said. “You know what different years were happening all the way back into the '30s.”

The old-fashioned techniques were joined by a high-tech network of SNOTEL measuring sites in the 1970s and ‘80s, adding greater depth to the West’s understanding of snowpack. They use sensitive measuring equipment and automatically beam data to researchers via satellite.

Together, the new and old data paint an increasingly important picture of the region’s water supply.

“I think as the West got developed and more and more people showed up and are using the river, it becomes that much more important that people understand it and know that this water one day is going to feed California avocados or Mexico cantaloupe,” Jaouen said.

Ruedi Reservoir, just downstream of a snow survey site, holds water within the Roaring Fork watershed. That watershed makes up 0.5% of the landmass in the Colorado River basin, but provides about 10% of its water.
Alex Hager
/
KUNC
Ruedi Reservoir, just downstream of a snow survey site, holds water within the Roaring Fork watershed. That watershed makes up 0.5% of the landmass in the Colorado River basin, but provides about 10% of its water.

While drought has dominated headlines during many recent Colorado summers, Lewin and others say the fate of the Colorado River is determined in the winter. While other factors like soil moisture and temperature play an important role in water availability and the likelihood of wildfire, snow is a key metric for understanding how dry summers will be.

As the ongoing drought pushes water issues more prominently into the public eye, she says it’s important to make sure the public fully understands data about snow and rivers.

“You need to look at the context that you're reading or listening to it in because often there's a bigger picture,” Lewin said. “The data all tells a story, and it just depends on the context that we're reading it in.”

This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.

Alex is KUNC's reporter covering the Colorado River Basin. He spent two years at Aspen Public Radio, mainly reporting on the resort economy, the environment and the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that, he covered the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery for KDLG in Dillingham, Alaska.
Related Content